


i'm at the age when i know what i need

by void_fish



Series: you and me and all our friends [2]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Animal Transformation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-13
Updated: 2017-12-13
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/void_fish/pseuds/void_fish
Summary: ‘What the fuck,’ Luc says, opening his other eye.The dog stops yelling and snorts at him. It stands up on its hind legs and puts its front paws on the side of Luc’s mattress, and dances a little, like it wants to get up.[or: sonny milano: accidental puppy]





	i'm at the age when i know what i need

**Author's Note:**

> twitter made me do it. i'm not nearly as funny as i think i am. i have no regrets.
> 
> a friend of mine has boston terriers. they are all sonny milano.
> 
> mentions of: drug use, hooking up while under the influence, vomiting (nothing in detail)
> 
> big big thanks to wolfpupy for the speedy beta. any remaining mistakes are of course my own.

Luc’s alarm is going off.

He tries to ignore it, which lasts about three point two seconds, when he realises it’s not actually his alarm. It sounds-- a little like a motorbike engine having a heart attack, if a motorbike engine ran off of helium.

Luc cracks an eye open.

Sonny’s bed is empty. He’s left a trail of clothes across the floor to-- oh.

Luc looks down, and finds the noise. There is a small, black and white puppy with a squashed face, pointy ears and the biggest, shiniest eyes he has ever seen, sitting in a sweatpant nest at the edge of Luc’s bed, staring at him and _yelling_.

‘What the fuck,’ Luc says, opening his other eye.

The dog stops yelling and snorts at him. It stands up on its hind legs and puts its front paws on the side of Luc’s mattress, and dances a little, like it wants to get up.

‘This is a weird prank,’ he tells the dog, sitting up to look around the room. Maybe Sonny’s hiding. The dog yips, and cocks its head. It’s kind of cute, in a bug-eyed kind of way. Its ears flicker from forward to sideways and back.

‘Are you going to piss on my sheets if I pick you up?’ he asks the dog. It cocks its head the other way. One of its ears threatens to flop over, and it twitches.

-

Luc ends up with the dog sprawled out on one of his pillows and snoring.

He digs through the sheets to find his phone and texts Sonny.

 _this is a bad prank_ , he says. _you hate dogs, where did you even find a dog? did you STEAL a dog? what the fuck, sonny_

He hits send. Across the room, a phone beeps. The puppy wakes up with a jolt and barks, and looks at Luc suspiciously.

‘Sorry,’ Luc says, automatically, and then shakes his head a little. ‘Where did you _come_ from?’

The dog turns in a circle on the pillow and plops back down, curled up in a ball except for one skinny leg poking out. Luc pokes gently at the pads of the paw and gets a whuff for his troubles. He brings his hand back, holds it palm out in surrender. The dog squints at him, and goes back to sleep.

-

Luc goes investigating.

It’s not _snooping_ , he’s just-- looking for clues. Clues as to where the fuck Sonny is, and how he left to get a dog, brought the dog back, and then left again without taking his phone, wallet or keycard with him.

Okay, fine, he’s snooping, sue him.

Not like he finds anything, anyway. Sonny’s phone is locked and his wallet is full of one dollar notes and nothing else, what the fuck, Milano.

He goes back to his own bed with the wallet. The dog is watching him from where its curled on Luc’s pillow.

‘You wanna track him down with me, huh?’ he asks, holding out the wallet for the dog to sniff.

The dog wrinkles its nose, and flops onto his back, tongue lolling.

Well, at least Luc can tell it’s a he now.

-

His actual alarm goes off, telling him it’s time to shower and get dressed and head down to breakfast, but-- the dog is still here, and Sonny is not, and he’s pretty sure he should be telling someone, but he doesn’t know who.

He thinks about maybe just-- taking the dog down to breakfast with him, and seeing if anyone knows where he came from.

He takes him into the bathroom anyway, puts him in the sink to see if he’ll pee there while Luc pisses and showers and thinks about shaving before deciding it’s way too much effort for seven am.

‘What am I gonna do with you?’ he asks, picking the dog up after his shower. He cuddles into Luc’s shirt and makes a squeaky sound.

Luc sighs, and picks up his phone.

He’s about to dial when someone knocks on his hotel room door. Fucking _finally_.

‘You finally got bored of your prank, huh?’ He shouts through the door. ‘Well the joke's on you, because it pissed in your suitcase! Take the dog back to where you got it from!’

He’s lying about the suitcase, but how is Sonny gonna know that?

He opens the door. It’s not Sonny.

Andy and Z are standing on the other side, fully dressed and holding takeout cups of coffee.

‘Aw,’ Andy says. ‘Cute puppy.’

‘You’re not Sonny,’ Luc says, suspicious. ‘Are you in on the prank?’

Z tilts his head. ‘What prank?’

‘Sonny left this dog in my room and now I can’t get hold of him,’ he says, holding up the puppy. It yips and flaps its paws in alarm.

‘Well shit,’ Andy says, grinning and leaning down to look the puppy in the eye. ‘He’s _tiny_ , Dubi’s gonna be _thrilled_.’

‘--Why is Dubi going to be thrilled?’ Luc asks, slowly.

‘The dog is Sonny,’ Z says, pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s getting a headache. ‘ _Why_ on the _road_?’

The puppy yips again.

-

The three of them, plus the dog (Luc can’t think of the dog as Sonny, because that’s _ridiculous_ ) end up in Dubi’s hotel room, with Dubi and also Cam, who is there for some reason?

He’s just getting out of the shower when they arrive. It is None Of Luc’s Business.

‘Holy shit,’ Dubi says, pulling a shirt on and taking the puppy away from Luc without asking. ‘ _Sonny_?’

‘Has to be,’ Andy says. ‘Small, annoying, loud…’

‘Lazy,’ Luc adds, without thinking, and then, ‘Wait. People don’t turn into dogs. This isn’t juniors anymore.’

Dubi laughs. So does Cam. Luc can tell even though his back is to them as he steps into his clothes, because his shoulders are shaking.

‘Okay,’ Luc says. ‘Fine. The dog is Sonny.’

(The dog perks up when he says that, like he recognises his name. Fuck. Shit.)

‘ _But_ ,’ he continues. ‘ _Why_ is Sonny a dog? And how do we _fix_ it?’

‘I mean,’ Dubi says. ‘I know I go puppy when I’m stressed. Mostly I just have to wait it out though.’

Luc’s day is getting weirder every time someone opens their mouth. He deeply, seriously considers going back to bed and accepting the healthy scratch for missing practice.

‘When _you_ go _puppy_?’ he asks, because apparently no one else is going to.

Cam, fully dressed by now, joins Dubi on his bed, taking the puppy off him and tickling his-- Sonny’s-- belly until he squirms. ‘Welcome to the best kept secret in Columbus,’ he says, and kicks Dubi gently. ‘Gonna show them?’ he asks.

Dubi sighs, long suffering. ‘I just finished doing my _hair_ ,’ he complains, but he stands up and strips to his underwear anyway.

And then there’s a husky puppy sitting in the middle of the hotel room, massively fluffy and bright eyed. He shakes his fur out and wags his tail.

Puppy Sonny _flips out_. Cam can’t keep hold of him, and he tumbles to the ground, where he scrambles to his feet and proceeds to tackle the husky.

Chaos ensues.

-

‘You turn into a _husky_?’ Luc asks, when they’ve separated the dogs, and Dubi’s human shaped again.

‘I’m an _Alaskan Malamute_ ,’ Dubi says, haughty.

‘Yeah, that’s the important part of that question,’ Luc says. Sonny-- fine, he accepts it, the dog is Sonny-- is curled in the crook of his elbow, content.

‘ _Husky_ ,’ Dubi grumbles to himself, and starts buttoning his shirt. Cam jabs him with his elbow.

‘Be nice to the rookie,’ he says. ‘It’s been a big morning.’

‘It happened in juniors,’ Dubi says. ‘Then not for a long time. Then-- maybe eight months ago, it started happening again. I was stressed about something, and I guess my body decided to reintroduce that particular coping mechanism.’

Luc looks down at Sonny. ‘You think he’s stressed?’

‘That’s how it works for me,’ Dubi says, shrugging.

Luc hasn’t known Sonny for very long, a couple of months, but they’re road roomies. You learn a lot of things about a guy very fast when you’re road roomies.

‘Sonny isn’t capable of stress,’ Luc says. ‘When he gets stressed, he mostly smokes a joint with the window open and--’ He stops.

 _And then we make out_ , he was going to add, but. That doesn’t seem pertinent here.

‘And then he’s better,’ he finishes, lamely.

Dubi hums.

‘I guess just wait him out then,’ he says. ‘He’s gonna turn back sooner or later. Rub his belly. That’s always nice.’

And that is officially too much information about Dubi for Luc right now, so. He thanks them, and makes his escape, Sonny still nestled in his arms.

Andy tells Luc he’ll tell Coach that he and Sonny are feeling a little under the weather, they’re gonna get room service breakfast and sleep a little longer before heading to the rink.

‘Thanks,’ he says, genuine.

‘Wruff,’ says Sonny, and he licks Andy’s knuckles.

-

Luc doesn’t mean to end up in a staring match with puppy Sonny, but.

‘Come on, man,’ he says, from his bed. ‘Turn back already. I don’t wanna miss practice because you’re a dog.’

Sonny makes a solemn noise, and then flips so he’s lying on his back on his own bed, disappearing into the sheets for a second.

‘Please?’ Luc asks, not expecting much. ‘I’m asking _nicely_ , Sonny.’

There’s a weird static-y feeling in the room, like all the air is sucked out, and then Sonny is back, lying on his back in bed, limbs all in the air.

‘Huh,’ he says, upside down.

‘Hi,’ Luc says. ‘Please put some pants on.’

-  


They make the team bus just before they have to fucking _walk_ to the practice rink. Sonny is unshowered, and there’s dog hair on Luc’s shirt, but they make it.

Dubi gives them both fist bumps as they climb on.

They settle in the back of the bus, just in front of Andy and Z.

Sonny’s about to put headphones on, and Luc straight up takes them off him.

‘No,’ he says, and Sonny looks at him, confused. ‘We are _talking_ about this morning,’ Luc says, ‘And we are using _words_.’

‘Uh,’ Sonny says. ‘Okay?’

‘I’ll start?’ Luc says, vaguely hysteric. ‘What the _fuck_?’

‘I didn’t mean to!’ Sonny protests. ‘It’s not like I was like hey, I know what’ll be fun this morning, being stuck as a dog and missing breakfast and getting _sat on_ by Dubi!’

Behind them, Z snorts. When Luc glances back, he’s stonefaced, reading something on his phone. Andy is _already_ asleep, what the fuck.

‘Has it happened before?’

‘Not since I was a kid,’ Sonny admits. ‘I, you know, got old enough to smoke weed, and that kind of stops it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ Luc says. ‘I know you have some, I found it when I was--’ He stops.

Sonny looks at him. ‘When you were…?’

‘Looking for clues,’ Luc admits. ‘I’m still not totally convinced this isn’t a fever dream or a _really_ elaborate prank.’

‘I didn’t want to,’ Sonny says, flushing a little.

‘Didn’t want to get high?’ Luc says, laughing a little, because that’s the most un-Sonny-like thing he’s ever heard. Sonny has turned up to _practice_ stoned. Not like, super stoned, but a little. Like when he and Luc split an edible for four people the night before and he was still a little high the next morning. That level of stoned.

Sonny always wants to get stoned, is Luc’s point.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Because of reasons. Can we talk about this later?’

He’s looking a little cagey, and Luc remembers what Dubi said about stress. He doesn’t want Sonny puppying out on the bus.

‘Later,’ he says.

-

Later, they have a game, and they have a small victory party, and a flight to catch, and then Luc falls asleep and gets gently maneuvered into Savvy’s car without really waking up at all, and then, later is the next morning.

-

Later turns into next week, because Luc gets the flu from one of Savvy’s kids and ends up stuck in bed for like four days throwing up and feeling incredibly sorry for himself.

Three days in, he gets a text from Sonny’s phone that just says _dsgudougobujsyuizvsssssssssss_ , which is different from Sonny’s usual brand of incoherence in that it doesn’t have a single emoji in it.

‘Fuck,’ he says, stuffy, and texts Andy.

He spends the rest of the day getting intermittent pictures of puppy Sonny sleeping, eating, fighting Andy’s couch, and even playing in the garden on the roof of Andy’s building.

 _He’s cuter like this_ , Andy texts him, near dinner.

Luc feels weirdly insulted and isn’t quite sure why.

-

‘Hey,’ Sonny says, poking his head around the door. ‘Savvy said you were up, but I can come back later?’

‘I’m up, I’m up,’ Luc says, fighting his way out of the blankets. He’s not quite over the flu, but he’s not infectious anymore, the doctor said, so teammates can come visit without fear of being sneezed on.

‘Hey,’ Sonny says again, grinning. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Luc is immediately suspicious.

‘What’s up?’ he asks.

‘Why does anything have to be up?’ Sonny asks.

‘Because you’re a terrible actor,’ Luc says.

Sonny-- doesn’t put up any more of a fight. He deflates, slinks into the room.

‘When I went puppy last week, and Andy hung out with me,’ he starts. ‘We figured out why I keep doing it.’

‘ _Keep_ doing it?’

‘I maybe went puppy a few times between the time you know about and when Andy dogsat,’ he admits.

‘That was like ten days,’ Luc says, slowly.

‘I was really stressed?’ Sonny tries.

‘Hmm,’ Luc says, and then has a coughing fit. Sonny ends up rubbing his back gently, and passes him his water glass when the worst of it is over.

It’s-- surprising, from Sonny, who mostly likes smacking people’s asses with his stick and biting Luc’s collarbone during aforementioned stoned makeouts. He’s never gentle, unless he has the puck on his stick.

‘You know how we sometimes get really high and make out?’ He asks. He’s-- very close to Luc, all of a sudden. Closer than Luc realised, anyway.

‘Yeah?’ Luc asks.

‘I turned puppy the first time because-- I was thinking about maybe asking if you wanted to do it sober sometimes.’

Luc’s world shifts on it’s axis a little.

‘Huh,’ he says.

Sonny looks a little like he’s about to go four legged on Luc right now.

‘So yeah,’ he says. ‘That’s why.’

‘Huh,’ Luc says again, and then, ‘Don’t go puppy on me.’

‘I’m trying not to,’ he says, giving Luc a weak smile.

‘Are you--’ Luc starts and stops. ‘Are you asking if I wanna hook up some time, or?’

‘I would be okay with more,’ Sonny admits. ‘If you are.’

Luc takes a breath. He feels a little like _he_ might go puppy.

‘I think I’d be okay with more,’ he says, and Sonny pauses, tilts his head. He looks alarmingly like his puppy self.

‘Yeah?’ he asks.

‘--Yeah,’ Luc says, and then repeats himself, firmer. ‘Yeah.’

Sonny beams. ‘Awesome,’ he says.

‘Awesome,’ Luc echoes. Sonny’s happiness is kind of infectious, he can’t help but smile back at him.

‘Cool,’ Sonny says.

‘Oh my god,’ Luc says. ‘You’re so dumb. Come here.’

He pulls Sonny in for a kiss, soft and chaste, and feels Sonny smile into it.

‘Cool,’ Sonny says again, weakly, when Luc pulls back.

‘I don’t know why I like you,’ Luc says, but he’s still smiling.

-

Sonny gets the flu.

Luc would be sorry, except when he sneezes, he keeps turning into a puppy. (A Boston Terrier, Luc discovers, after some googling)

‘Bless you,’ he says.

The puppy looks up at him, miserable, and sneezes again.

 _This is your fault_ , he seems to be saying.

‘Yeah,’ Luc says. ‘This is my bad. Sorry about that.’

The puppy sneezes again. Luc’s not that sorry. This is cute as shit.


End file.
